


A Twenty in Every Stat

by Einzel



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Other, eventual makoharu and other animals, haru did not ask for this, nagisa used attract! it's super effective, neither did sasabe tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 04:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5770939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Einzel/pseuds/Einzel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>University AU where freshman Nagisa decides to make some friends by organizing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign at the place he rents with Nanase Haruka, a second-year university student and secret mangaka for <em>Monthly Girls’ Romance.</em></p>
<p>Haru doesn’t want to get involved. Fate moves knight to front door. Checkmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Twenty in Every Stat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [charmingStrangeness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmingStrangeness/gifts).



> Happy Birthday to charmingStrangeness! You are a wonderful conversation buddy, and I really hoped to put some of our imagined AUs to good use, since I now know what a delightful feeling it is to find familiar details in a fic written by a friend – it’s like the best Easter egg hunt ever. (If you are curious, dear reader, check my friend’s profile: she wrote a fic titled _A Day in the Life of X_ , which is based on one of our conversations, and is super sweet!)
> 
> I remember you telling me at one point that if I ever looked for something to write, I need look no further than this one scene in our D&D AU – you know the one. Well, I decided to do my best and write the full thing, and merge in my adapted mangaka!Haru AU and some anime references for a bit of extra fun. I hope you will like this first part (the rest are still forthcoming because I’m slow as heck), and may this year bring you every happiness in the world! <3

In the kitchen, Haru scooped up the last bits of raw squid with his fingers and strewed them, ever so carefully, over the hot grill plate. He quickly checked the electric timer resting on the cupboard, then counted the seconds in his head to block out the din coming from the living room.

He struggled. By the sounds of it, Nagisa did, too.

A quick flip and sixty seconds later, small curls of grilled squid joined the rest of the batch on a large serving plate. Using his trusty pair of tongs, Haru quickly rearranged a few rogue pieces for artistic effect, then wiped the tongs clean with a sanitizing hand wipe. Whereas most people would have simply started moving about the kitchen to retrieve the items they needed next, Haru learned to wield the tongs like an extension of his arm out of willful laziness. Without even looking, he reached them out to grab the toothpick holder off the right shelf, then plopped it on another tray laden with damp hand towels. His next reach brought him a lemon from the woven fruit basket by the fridge, followed by a small saucer and sauce dish from the shelf, and finally, a half-full bottle of teriyaki sauce from the spice rack.

Without missing a beat, Haru screwed the cap off and tipped the bottle with his tongs, watching with a content little smile as the sauce trickled into the dish below. Once he deemed it sufficiently full, Haru screwed the cap back on and returned the bottle to the spice rack, giving his tongs a spin before setting them down on the counter. In their place, he peeled a knife off the magnetic strip by the stove and cut the lemon into thin wedges, fashioning them into a bright yellow flower on the saucer that soon joined the sauce dish, toothpick holders, and hand towels on the tray.

_There_. He was finally done, and glancing at the timer again, Haru let out a relieved sigh. It was twenty minutes to seven. No matter what state he would find Nagisa in, Haruka at least was right on schedule and perfectly free to disappear into his room as soon as the first guest arrived. That was his only condition when Nagisa told him of his plan to plaster invitation posters for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign all over campus: that Haruka have as little to do with it as possible. Well, aside from vacuuming the floors. And cleaning the bathroom. Fluffing the pillows, picking up his own clutter… and making snacks…

Haruka pressed a heavy hand to his face. Try as he might, it was terribly hard to say no to Nagisa’s quivering mouth and puppy dog eyes. What a little bully he was…! If Haru didn’t have very good reasons to stay away from the game, he might have been roped into wasting an entire evening on a weekly basis. It would have been too much, just like Nagisa himself turned out to be a great deal more than met Haruka’s eye just a few weeks ago. His new roommate seemed small, thin, fragile even, yet larger than life and louder than trumpets. _Oh, well…_

“Nagisa..! I’m done,” Haru called out to him as he ripped off a large sheet of foil to make a loose tent for the grilled squid.

“Just a second, Haru-chan—” cried Nagisa in reply, only to be cut off by a burst of ominous music steaming from Haruka’s room. “Is that your phone?”

Haru closed his eyes with a pained expression and lurched into his room, pulling the door safely shut behind him. Of all phone calls in the world, he hated unexpected work-related ones the most, and the least Nagisa knew of it, the better. With that in mind, Haru moved into the furthest corner of his room, even turning his back on the door before he pressed _Call_ and lifted the phone to his ear.

“GOOD EVENING, HARUKA-KUN!” boomed his suspiciously cheerful editor, Sasabe Gorou. “How’s my favorite author doing?”

_I bet you say that to all the authors_ , thought Haru with a suspicious squint that only the spider on the left-side wall could see, if it cared to look, of course.

“Evening,” he said quietly at last. “I’m fine.” Sasabe cleared his throat with a cough.

“Well,” he began to say, his voice now lowered to a bearable volume, “I’m calling because I just finished reading your latest chapter!”

_Only took him like two weeks._ “Ah…”

“Aannnd, it was good! Your Mizushima-chan and Tobimaru-kun are getting along nicely!” continued Sasabe in an upbeat tone, as if he could fool an artist with vague compliments or that hesitant press of his n’s. Haru braced himself for the inevitable. For a moment, silence blared on the other end.

“However…” _Here we go…_ “Your plot could really use some excitement, Haruka-kun.”

That, he did not expect. Luckily for Haru, no one saw his jaw drop except the spider on the left-side wall, if it really cared to look at all.

“Ex…citement..?” he echoed into the darkness of his room, his chest now a bramble of long-abandoned dreams. Despite having committed himself to writing romance in the course of the past year, Haru had long lost all passion in story-telling ever since his science-fiction manuscript (his favorite, his _child_ ) came back rejected by the publishers for the last time.

“You heard me,” replied Sasabe, suddenly no nonsense and all business in the absence of resistance from one of the most hard-headed mangakas he had ever known. “The pace is slowing to a crawl at this point! You should introduce a new character next, or take the plot in a different direction. You know, liven things up a little! That’s what our readers really want!”

“Is it,” grumbled Haruka, his stubborn streak returning. Sasabe suppressed a groan.

“ _Yes_ , it **_is_** ,” he groused. “Now _you_ listen to me, Haruka-kun. Your art is just as good as it’s always been, but you need to venture out of your comfort zone more! Ama-chan wasn’t kidding when she said you were the most unenthusiastic author she had ever met!”

Haruka took a long, sharp breath through his nose at the mention of his previous editor. Sasabe seemed to relent.

“So come on, now,” he said, his tone almost whiny. “Do something exciting with this story, alright?”

_Exciting. Different_. The words continued to buzz in Haruka’s mind while Sasabe’s moans and pleas shrank into background static… until a spark of inspiration hit Haruka at last.

“Okay,” he replied, his eyes gleaming in determination. “I will have Tobimaru-kun be kidnapped by aliens..!”

“That is **_not_** what I had in mind!” snapped Sasabe. “I just want you to bring more life into what’s already _there!_ Something like—! Something like… uhh… Ah! Remember the picnic chapter you did last fall? It had some amazing backgrounds, and got great response from our readers!”

“Backgrounds are a pain to do,” muttered Haruka darkly, his brow furrowed so hard it made a crinkle above his nose. Sasabe scoffed.

“Then introduce a new character!” he demanded, his patience thoroughly worn. “It’s either that or a series of new backgrounds, and no buts this time! I expect your proposal on my desk in one week!”

And with that, Sasabe hung up. Haru let out a bitter sigh.

As soon as his parents moved abroad to work, he shed their rose-tinted fantasies like a cramped cocoon. He looked back upon empty first prizes and meager art scholarships, shook his head, and switched their high expectations for lower, more comfortable ones. Like a steady paycheck to help with rent. A lackluster love story that rang as hollow as its illustrations were beautiful… and now his editor, the second one in little over a year, was nagging him to push the boundaries, as if anyone had cared about *that* before.

Well, as fate would have it, Nagisa was expecting a bunch of people to appear any minute now. Maybe Haru would glean some inspiration from them. After all, Nagisa himself was simply too wild to adapt into his love story at this point.

Speaking of Nagisa, Haru tossed his phone onto the bed and toddled into the living room to check on his roommate, and though not exactly surprised, he was still unnerved by what he saw. It was now quarter to seven, and Nagisa still wasn’t ready. With considerable effort, he managed to get rid of his laundry, the dog-eared text books, his study notes, and those empty bags of Pocky littering the floor. He even hauled in a large cardboard box labeled “D&D” in chicken scratch letters, and had just dropped several thick manuals onto the coffee table, but there was still no game board or dice in sight. Haruka raised an eyebrow. Nagisa let out a nervous giggle.

“I’ll be done in just a second, Haru-chan..!” he promised in a nervous tone, but a second later, the doorbell rang instead.

“Oh no, they’re already here!” wailed Nagisa, now clutching his face in panic. Haru sighed.

“I’ll let them in,” he said quietly, turning around before Nagisa could say another word. “You just get everything ready.”

“Aaah, thank you so much! You’re a life-saver, Haru-chan!” he heard Nagisa say. Haruka rolled his eyes as he crossed the floor, but before he could leave the room, Nagisa let out a tentative hum that brought him to a halt in the doorway.

“Are you _sure_ you won’t join us, Haru-chan?” whined Nagisa, who was now wrestling with a handmade game board. “The more the merrier, you know, and then you wouldn’t have to stay cooped up in your room and be bored to death!”

Haru pursed his lips. As much as he no longer complained or tried to correct Nagisa, his roommate’s unabashed familiarity and directness still chafed him.

“I won’t be bored. I have things to do,” he replied in a sullen tone. He paused for a second, then added with stiff shoulders, “Besides, I made food. Isn’t that enough…”

“Alright, _alright!_ I won’t ask anymore!” laughed Nagisa, throwing his hands up in playful surrender. He still grinned as he brought his hands back down and pressed them together in gratitude. “Thank you for helping out so much as it is, Haru-chan! You are the best roommate ever!”

“Enough, already…” mumbled Haru with tinged cheeks, and prompted by another ring of the bell, he left the living room in a hurry to open the door.

* * *

Despite being adamant he have nothing to do with the game itself, his task given by Sasabe began to fill Haru with something akin to anticipation for Nagisa’s mystery guests. Each and everyone one of them might become his future muse, and so he pulled the door open expecting inspiration to strike at once.

Instead, inspiration cowered and shrank at the colorful ensemble before him. As Haruka tried to process the details, he hardly knew which aspect of the visitor was screaming for attention more: the guy’s cherry-red glasses, his shimmering purple vest, the white shirt that seemed to dissolve into black butterflies towards the right shoulder, the beige corduroy pants, the pristine brown loafers, or the dark blue canvas bag that perfectly matched the guy’s hair color.

“Good evening!” blared the mysterious guest. “Is this Floor One, Two-Ef, One-oh-five I-Ess-Cee Saginomiya?”

 “…Y-yes…” mumbled Haruka in reply. _So… gaudy…_

“My name is Ryuugazaki Rei!” continued the guy with a hand over his chest. “First year at Meiji University, School of Science and Technology! I have come to attend the Dungeons and Dragons opening session advertised on this poster I found at our campus!” he said as he flicked his wrist to uncurl said poster, which he proceeded to shove in Haruka’s face. Haru narrowed his eyes. Now that he had actually seen one of these things, he wondered how anyone could find encouragement in the hellscape that was Nagisa’s hand-painted background photo-copied into a grayscale sludge.

“Down the hall,” he muttered with a slight jab of his index finger towards the living room. Ryuugazaki thanked him, then bent down to remove his shoes on the doormat. Haru, perceiving himself to be in the guy’s way, scooted slightly to the side.

“Oh, please don’t trouble yourself!” said Ryuugazaki as he gathered his loafers by their heels and moved past Haru to place them into the empty bottom of the shoe cabinet. “I shall not require guest slippers…”

Before Haru could protest that they didn’t even have any, Ryuugazaki continued,

“…I have come prepared and brought my own!”

And with that, the guy pulled from his canvas bag a pair of purple slippers dotted with white butterfly motifs and set them primly down on the floor. Haruka’s mouth opened, then closed shut. There was nothing for him to say, nothing to do but watch, stunned, as Ryuugazaki snuck his feet into the slippers, seemed to internally congratulate himself on being so thoughtful, and then strode past Haru with a smug smirk on his face. He soon stepped into the living room, where he announced himself with a loud _Greetings!_ , followed by a squeal of joy and much chatter from Nagisa.

Haru continued to glare in their direction in disappointment. Ryuugazaki Rei was perfectly unfit to appear in his manga.

* * *

Haru stood by the door for a little while, waiting for Nagisa to relieve him, but the chatter in the living room continued with no end in sight. However, just as Haru got fed up with Nagisa’s thoughtlessness and tried to leave for his room, the bell rang out for a second time.

“H-Haru-chan..!” cried Nagisa from the living room. Haru suppressed a sigh.

“I’ll get it,” he muttered in reply, then pulled the door open again to find a delinquent on his doorstep.

Well, judging by the black combat boots, ripped skinny jeans, the black leather jacket and the teensy, lopsided ponytail, anyway. The guy had reddish hair and crimson eyes, and when he sneered at Haru’s inquisitive looks, Haruka noticed he had his teeth filed.

_Why._

“Yo,” said the guy, his tone a little on edge and hands buried bracelet-deep in his pockets. “The name’s Matsuoka. Is this the Dee n’ Dee session?”

“Down the hall,” replied Haruka as he backed away to let the guy pass. Matsuoka stepped inside, hands remaining in his pockets even as he kicked his combat boots off, right into the back of the shoe cabinet. Haru snuck a peek at his feet and saw they were clad in a pair of patterned socks: faded red hearts swimming in a sea of flesh pink that might have been white before the wash. Matsuoka gave him a sharp noise of disdain for staring, then shuffled into the living room where Haruka heard him say _Yo_ to the others.

He thought of his love story and lowered his eyes to the floor. In his mind echoed a resolute _No_.

* * *

After a few minutes of listening to the others chatting in the living room – well, the guests yelling at Nagisa to stop tacking “-chan” onto their names –, the bell spooked absent-minded Haruka by ringing four times in rapid succession. He still shuddered as he pulled the door open, then stared at the colorful apparition posing dramatically outside. His hair was ridiculously orange. Haru must have been staring for several seconds before he managed to pry his eyes off it, but then he found himself gaping at the boy’s shirt that read **Lucky Roll!!** in large yellow letters, complete with cartoony sound effects. Had his mind not gone blank, Haru might have been impressed. This one’s fashion choices made Ryuugazaki look almost boring.

“Momo has arrived!” the boy announced himself with another dramatic pose, one hand flashing a victory sign over his forehead.

“Who..?” mumbled Haruka instinctively, regretting it immediately when the boy flew right in his face to introduce himself.

“ _Mikoshiba!_ MOMOTAROU!” he roared with his hands thrown in the air and his face now hovering an inch from Haruka’s. “Favorite class: Warrior! Favorite prestige class: Atlantean Cavalier! My lucky dice is ten-sided! My favorite hobby is hunting for stag beetles! When I wake up, the first place I scratch is my—”

“ _Down the hall_ ,” interrupted Haru in a stern tone, one finger whipped in the living room’s direction.

“Ya-HOO!” cried Mikoshiba in response as he zapped past Haruka like a streak of citrus lightning. The pair of converse sneakers he must have kicked off mid-run came tumbling across the air and rolling unceremoniously onto the floor. Haru furrowed his brow, let out a sharp breath of disapproval and swept them into the shoe cabinet with his foot, right on top of Matsuoka’s combat boots.

He was beginning to suspect that gamers made terrible muses.

* * *

Before Haru could even begin to lament in earnest, the bell chimed once again, this time so softly that the argument that came streaming out of the living room drowned it out with incredible ease. Haru pressed down on the handle almost in slow motion, pulling the door open just enough to take a peek. He blinked, and the door swung open.

Outside stood a girl who, after the first three visitors, looked suspiciously normal. She wore her light brown hair in a large bun pinned into place by a pink rose brooch. She wore a long, knitted pink cardigan over her short cream-colored dress, and a pair of black stockings that turned into two cats’ faces over the fronts of her thighs. A tiny pink purse dangled by her side. The more Haruka looked at her, the more he was convinced that this delicate, elfin creature must have come straight from fairy land and to the wrong address.

“Good evening,” she said, one hand on her chest and her breath a little short. “Has the game started yet?”

Or, maybe not.

“…No,” mumbled Haruka, still in shock.

“Ah, I’m so glad!” cried the girl in a puff of relief, and Haru could not help but notice the rosiness of her flushed cheeks and her bright little smile that knew nothing of what lurked further in. She reached down to take her black flats off. Haru hesitated.

“You can still run,” he found himself saying in a whisper. The girl paused to look at him and broke into a giggle.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said sweetly, “I know a thing or two about boys.”

She then gave Haruka a wink and glided inside, where she was welcomed more quietly and more politely than those before her. Haru’s eyes fell to the floor. Had the girl’s shoes not remained behind as proof of her existence, Haru might have thought he had only imagined her as a temporary repose.

He paused, eyes twinkling. She might do for his manga. With her design, she could be Mizushima-chan’s… friend? _No,_ her sister. That’s right, a younger sister.

After all, just like Haru himself, Mizushima-chan had no friends, and it seemed all too late to start making them now.

* * *

Once Haru composed himself from his pleasant shock, he stepped into the kitchen to check the timer. It was now two minutes past the designated starting time, and talk in the living room had shifted from introductions and arguments to character classes for the four players.

A party of five, counting Nagisa. Considering those unconvincing invitation posters, it could have been less. And yet, Haru found himself sighing in… what, exactly? Disappointment? Concern?

_Nagisa probably wished there had been more._ With only one plausible character design among them, even Haruka wished more would have come, if only for the first session.

He turned away from the door with sagging shoulders to go to his room.

The next moment, the entire apartment froze to the chime of the bell. Haru’s breath hitched. From the living room came a gasp of delight, then silence oozed so thick Haru could have swum in it. His own heart was jumping about in his chest as he inched back to the door and reached for the handle. Another one, perhaps his last chance…! His hand lingered in disbelief, then grabbed and pulled the door open in determination.

For a few seconds, all he saw was darkness. Staring in front of himself, Haru could make out nothing but faded black and some lines around it, black and gray lines in crisscross patterns that Haru just barely registered was plaid.

“Good evening,” came a soft voice above his head, coaxing Haru’s eyes upward until they met a pair of vibrant green eyes from the shadows. Was this really a person? They were tall enough to block out the hallway light…!

As if the monument in front of him had read his thoughts, they took a step back, and Haru watched in awe as the light fell on tousled olive green hair, a red plaid shirt stretching over shoulders broader than the doorway, and a mellow, sleepy smile.

“Ah, sorry about that,” chuckled the stranger, as if he had forgotten he was larger than most doorways in Japan. “I’m Tachibana Makoto.”

Haru’s lips parted, but no sound came. He simply continued to stare, eyes wide and legs shackled into place, at this benign caricature of a Western lumberjack. Spiky hair had never looked so soft before. The red plaid shirt, something Haruka ordinarily passed up without a second glance, looked strangely becoming on such a large, muscular frame. In the front pocket nestled a pair of monochrome thick-framed glasses, the most boring kind imaginable, and yet Haru suddenly found himself wondering how they looked on the guy’s face. Reading glasses, without a doubt. Tachibana Makoto, reclining in a chair with a book in hand…

“...session. Are you one of the players?” Haru caught the guy’s voice and flinched. He must have phased out. What did he miss?! “Nice to meet you, um…”

“Nanase… Haru..ka,” mumbled Haru, his eyes hooked into Makoto’s, who cocked his head to the side good-naturedly and offered his hand for a shake. Haru reached out his own like an obedient automaton, then watched it disappear in the guy’s larger one. With the smallest squeeze of that ridiculously huge hand, heat seeped into Haruka’s fingers and flooded straight into his cheeks.

“Are you one of the players, Nanase-kun?” asked Makoto with a patient smile. Haruka blinked, confused.

“No,” he managed to say at last, then added in a self-conscious tone, “I just made the food.”

“Ah, that would explain the apron,” replied Makoto with an amused grin. Haruka’s heart skipped a beat. He forgot to take it off…! Now he could only hope the guy was bad at English, for this particular apron, bought at a flea market two years ago, read in large blue letters, _Leave the cook alone_.

“It’s so nice of you to make food for everyone! I already had dinner, but I’ll be sure to try some,” promised Makoto. Haruka forced out a hum. Makoto lifted his hand and scratched his cheek with a finger.

“Um, may I come inside?” he said with a hapless smile. Haru nearly choked on his tongue. After having ushered four other guests inside with as little conversation or enthusiasm as possible, he suddenly felt just a teensy bit thoughtless. He hummed again and backed away to let Tachibana Makoto pass, almost expecting the guy to brush against him in the cramped hallway, but Makoto seemed used to narrow spaces and folded himself inside without the slightest touch. A few moments later, Haru watched him slip out of a pair of enormous sneakers and nudging them with a careful foot towards a growing cluster of mismatched footwear. Haru bit his lip. Everything about this guy was needlessly large…

“There,” he heard Makoto say, “I think I’m all set.” His eyes trailed off towards the living room, then returned to Haruka with a confident glint. “I suppose it’s down this hall?”

“Yeah…” breathed Haruka.

“Alright. I shall leave you alone, then,” said Makoto with a wink, then smothered his laughter with a cough when Haru whipped his head away, as if that could soothe the burn. “See you later, Nanase-kun,” was the guy’s final farewell, and Haru could only watch despondently as he disappeared into the living room, where he was welcomed in a flurry of excited voices. Nagisa, above all, sounded almost triumphant. He had never expected there would be so many people!

Now there were six in total. With Haru, there could have been seven… but he would never join them. _Never._

He lingered in the hall for a moment longer and then slipped into his own room, closing the door behind himself with a small, ashamed _thud_. He threw himself down on the bed, eyes boring into the floor. Behind those stormy eyes brewed a twinge of regret, and he hated it.

**Author's Note:**

> I know my current update record is terrible, but please bear with me. I swear I'm trying really hard.
> 
> EDIT: I drew Chigusa because she never did introduce herself by name, did she? Please appreciate Chi-chan.


End file.
